Let me save you the trouble, Once you are assigned a claim number
1) You get the quote,
2) They send shipping label
3) You ship tire (at their expense), don't forget to get all the papers because its going to Canada and you have to provide customs documents.
4) You email quote for damages
5) You give them plenty of time to evaluate the tire and respond
6) One day you realize that you have not heard from them,
7) You call or e-mail
8) They send form letter stating that the tire failed because you overloaded it, and the letter denies culpability for the damage even if it was their fault, BUT out of the goodness of their heart they will send you $125 for the tire if you just return the enclosed release of liability. LOL
9) one day, after all this is over you decide to weigh your rig you find out that the tire was never overloaded and in fact was never near being overloaded. Then it finally dawns on you that the tire was so cheap it was overloaded the day the tire was made. Then you reflect on the fact that China can't even be trusted to make and ship dog food the the US because they put their industrial waste in it. You shake your head and start noticing all the junk that is made in China. Even your rims are last years miller light cans, and are this years aluminum alloy rims from China. Sorry, but LOL.
But there is a bright side;
I got my insurance company to pay my damages and there was no deductible as well. They paid the whole ticket.
Since I changed the rims and tires out on my rig, I intended to sell the tires to someone who owns a utility trailer; like a landscaping company. So in lieu of $125, I asked if they would ship a tire. That whole process took 4 months. I received the tire just the other day. So now I have 5 wheels with tires for sale.
My advice to you is: Buy G614 tires for your rig if your rims are compatible, take the $125 offered, and sell the remaining tires on craigslist, get a couple of hundred for them or what ever you can get. That 125 from towmax will cover the expense of the estimate (my dealer charged for the estimate but would credit if I did the work with him.) The tail wags the dog in this industry.
File the claim with your insurance (which you are going to have to do anyway), if under 5,000 your insurance company should send the money directly to you and not involve your lender. Fix it yourself, (I know I could have done a better job than the dealer.) Use the money to buy a set of G614s. Problem solved. Spend the extra money on a dinner and a movie with the wife.
BTW, tell the dealer you want two estimates, one for your insurance company and one for Towmax. Or just one copy for you, and tell them nothing about your insurance or Towmax, but whatever you do file with both your insurance company and Towmax.
If you collect from both of them more power to you, it is none of the dealers business where the money is coming from, tell him he will be paid in cash and he need not worry about the details, my dealer was a part time lawyer and tried to tell me I was going to jail for fraud. I told him it was between me, towmax, and liberty mutual and not him, and that if he suspected fraud he should immediately call the police so that they could send out a detective to take a report. LOL, RV mechanic and part time lawyer giving me advice what a joke. If you do manage to collect from Towmax and your insurance company, and you have some kind of guilt complex about taking money then, send it back to them or call your insurance company and sign the check over to them, but otherwise I would just take a trip in my RV. Your insurance company would not know what to do with the returned funds anyway. They might. But is is a sure bet that your insurance will have paid the claim before you get your package across the border into Canada to Dynamic Tire company, (that is where mine had to go). The tire serial number will tell where the tire will have to be returned to.
Heartland has the parts prefabricated and painted already, but even if they were not painted, you could install the parts and have a local body shop paint it. Its just a piece of sheet metal so it will not require much preparation, just some basic paint matching. My skirt/fender was already painted and only needed to be trimmed. All I needed was the skirt/fender and the plastic wheel well trim and a few screws. By the time I realized that I paid 2k to fix it......it, was too late, I could have fixed it for 500 in a 1/2 day, and my rig would not have had to stay at the dealer for a month. AND I could have done a better job as well.
Good luck
P.S. I know you are PO'd now, but just sit back and know what to expect. Get your money and move on.
If you have any questions about how to get an insurance company to pay for the damage to your rig because of a blown tire let me know, I'm sure many would like to know "what to say and how to say it". You can screw yourself out of a claim in a hurry if you say the wrong thing. Many already know what to say and thats cool, but many do not know how to get paid, and many fear that their rate will go up which is not true unless you are filing an unreasonable number of comprehensive claims. You could have knocked me over with a stick when I found out that my insurance company was going to pay 100% of the damage.
Thought I would update the thread...contact TowMax Distributor, they want me to: 1) prep the carcasses for shipment (will do this over the weekend); 2) Get repair estimates for the rig (unfortunately I can't get an appointment until 10/03). The manufacturer will be contacting me about FedEx picking up the tires and will be asking about repair costs (crossing my fingers they don't find a reason not to pay up).***************...anyone have any luck going this route yet?